The Longest Night

October 17, 2019

By Larry Carlin

Over the 40+ years that I have lived in the San Francisco/Bay Area – and since the two local baseball teams have played in many post-season games – I have often been asked, “Have you ever been to a World Series game?” The answer to this query is something of a riddle, because I have been to only one, but I have never seen a game played.

In mid-October of 1989, I was playing music gigs whenever I could, and supplementing my meager income by driving tour buses part-time. I had gotten a bus driver’s license in 1976 while in college, and the job was a good way to make some money during the day while playing music at night. But a few days before October 17th I was contacted by Marin Airporter, a bus company in Larkspur, CA, that I occasionally drove for. They wanted to know if I had any interest in driving a charter bus to the World Series game in San Francisco on the 17th. The trip entailed going to the Oakland Coliseum to pick up the A’s management and families, and driving them to Candlestick Park in SF to face the Giants in Game Three of the “Bay Bridge Series.” I was also told that there would be a ticket involved to watch the game. I had to think about this for about three seconds before saying “Yes!” I’d be going to my first World Series Game, and be paid to do it. This was a possible once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I could not let pass by.

On the afternoon of the big day, I drove to the bus yard by 1 p.m. and found out that there would be three other buses on this move, which was just fine by me. Since I was just a part-timer, it would be good to follow a full-time employee, as the other guys were older veterans. All I had to do was be the fourth bus in line.

It was a beautiful, sunny and warm day as we drove across the Richmond Bridge to the A’s stadium in Oakland. We pulled into the big, mostly empty parking lot, and picked up about 150 boisterous people (the A’s already were leading the Series 2-0) wearing green and gold, the colors of the team. The four buses then made their way over the Cypress Freeway and SF/Oakland Bay Bridge to Candlestick Park, which used to be located at the southern edge of the city. It was a long, slow crawl getting through SF, as it seemed that the entire city of 720,000 was trying to get to the ballpark that only had enough seats for 69,732 people.

The buses finally pulled into the parking lot out by center field at around 4:40 p.m. After everyone got off the buses and into the stadium, I lagged behind a bit as I did not want to go into the game with the other bus drivers who I did not know very well. Once the coast was clear, I locked up my bus and headed for the gate. I was walking through the turnstile at 5:04 p.m. when suddenly – for the next 15 seconds – the earth started rumbling while the cyclone fencing and the light towers started swaying like palm trees in a wind storm. I, along with most of the fans at the game, had experienced earthquakes before. While this one was the strongest that I had ever felt, once the rumbling stopped the crowd let out a massive cheer, as if this were a sign from the gods that the Giants were about to turn things around in the Series. The power had gone out, so I walked up the long escalator to the stands. Most everyone thought that the power outage was just temporary, so people still cued up in long lines waiting to buy their beers and hot dogs. No one went tearing for the exits.

Now, this was before the cellphone era, so no calls or news arrived within seconds on mobile devices. With the power being off, the p.a. announcer could not immediately issue demands over the sound system. The only access to the outside world in those minutes after the quake came from transistor radios that some diehard fans carried so that they could listen to the game while also watching it in real time. When the power did not come on for at least 10 minutes, people started to get restless. The game was going to start soon, and no one wanted to miss the first pitch.

Slowly, however, the news started filtering in via the radios that this was a major quake. There were reports that “the Bay Bridge has collapsed,” and that “San Francisco was on fire.” Eventually the p.a. system began working again via a backup generator, and before long announcements were made the game had been canceled, and that everyone should depart in a slow and orderly fashion. Which, to the relief of thousands, is what happened.

I was one of the first ones back to the buses, since I had not gotten very far into the stadium. It took a while for all of the people to get back on board, and then a pow-wow was held by all the bus monitors. A decision was made to get everyone back to Oakland without going over any of the five bridges that cross the bay. This meant that we would have to drive south 40+ miles on 101 almost to San Jose, cut across the southern part of the bay, and then head north another 40 miles on 880 to Oakland. As the crow flies, from Candlestick to the Oakland Coliseum is about five miles. But there were no crows offering to carry bus passengers across the bay.

As luck would have it, I had the person in charge of the group on my bus, so suddenly I became the #1 driver that would lead everyone on our journey. Which was actually a good thing, because the other three drivers were from north of the San Francisco, and they knew little about the geography or roads in the South Bay.

We were the last vehicles to leave the parking lot, and since power was still out, that meant that traffic lights were not operating, and that there were close to 70,000 people that got a head start to the freeway. It took over an hour to go maybe one mile to 101 South, with the thinking that as soon as we get to the freeway, we’d be moving at more decent pace. Which, to everyone’s surprise, was not the case.

Once we got onto the freeway, the pace picked up maybe 2-3 miles per hour. But there was nothing we could do about such, as this was the main route to San Jose. It was a long slow crawl, since the highway was jam packed. All the while, via those transistor radios, more and more reports of fires and carnage were being broadcast. The double-decker Cypress Freeway, which we had only driven across a few hours earlier, collapsed, and dozens were crushed to death. A section of the Bay Bridge had fallen – not the bridge itself – so it had been closed. It was all very frightening to hear these things. But my job was to get the passengers on the bus back to Oakland safe and sound, one way or the other.

It took about 1.5 hours to go about 20 miles down 101, and the freeway was jammed with slow moving traffic. But right around San Carlos, I got an idea. I knew that there was a parallel local road called Middlefield that stretched quite a distance down the peninsula. And with electrical power still not fully restored, I got on the bus radio and I told the other three drivers to follow me as I got off at Woodside Road. “I sure hope you know where you’re going, Carlin!” came an anxious reply from one of the buses.

We headed west about two miles, and then turned left on Middlefield. There was very little traffic on the road, and most of the signal lights were not working. The four-bus caravan made its way all the way down to Mountain View in about 15 minutes, stopping only at four-way intersections. When we reached Highway 237, we turned left and took this route at the base of the bay, where we connected with Highway 880, and from there we made our way up to Oakland with very little traffic heading north.

After dropping off the people at the stadium, one final task lay before me. I had to get the bus back to the bus yard in San Rafael, and by this point it was 11:30 p.m. The most direct way to get there was to drive via Berkeley and Richmond and go over the Richmond/San Rafael Bridge, which was only about a 15 mile ride from the stadium. One way or another, some bridge had to be crossed, so this is the route that I took. There were almost no cars on the highway at this point, and I metaphorically held my breath as I made my way across the bridge. I got to the yard without a hitch, parked the bus, and then began my 10-minute drive home to Sausalito.

By the time I arrived home at 1 a.m., I was greeted by my anxious and concerned girl friend, as she had not heard from me since leaving the house some 12 hours before. It was calm and peaceful, almost surreal. A few books had fallen off the shelf, and a plant or two was knocked over on the porch. Otherwise, all seemed normal. Meanwhile, just about six miles away in San Francisco fires were raging, buildings were in ruin, and people were dying. The Loma Prieta Earthquake, with a magnitude of 6.9, was now international news. In total, the quake caused an estimated $10 billion in damage. 63 people lost their lives. And life was never the same for thousands of others.

October 17, 1989, one was of the longest and most memorable nights of my life. And, as it turns out, it was probably my only chance to ever get paid to watch a World Series Game in person. When the Series started up again ten days later, I was out of town. And now, my bus driving days are long over.

Oh, for those keeping score at home? The A’s swept the Giants in four.